Morning all.
It’s transfer deadline day today after what’s been an unusually quiet month. FFP has finally sprung into action and after the charges brought against Forest and Everton, it seems clubs have being doing their financial maths like never before. It’s about time too as why have rules if they’re not going to be enforced?
If Sky Sports are to be believed, Chelsea are desperate to offload a few players in order to balance their books, Forest too and I imagine they’re not the only ones.
The internet is awash with news that Aston Villa have agreed a deal with Arsenal to sign Lino Sousa. This one has surprised me bearing in mind we as a club are not exactly overrun with left backs but he’s still only 19 years old. Mikel Arteta must think he’s not the right fit for his team either now or in the future. Either that or the player wasn’t prepared to stick around and wait for his chance. After signing for Villa, he’s rumoured to be going out on loan with Plymouth.
Another player who has left is Bradley Ibrahim as he’s gone to Hertha BSC on a permanent deal. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see other younger players leave today either on loan or for good.
Mikel Arteta seems to favour young but experienced players in his squad, majority of whom he’s brought in from other clubs. Under his management, not one academy player has become a permanent fixture in either the team or on the bench. A concerning statistic I think as not only are we as a club not producing players deemed good enough for Mikel Arteta to promote but we’re selling them for peanuts too.
One also has to question why the club still has Mo Elneny and Cedric Soares on its books. Soares is earning £75,000 a week, Elneny, £55,000 a week. (According to the internet) put the two figures together and there’s a salary which would make one new player very happy I’m sure. One who might actually manage to play more than 90 minutes of football a season.
This is heading towards a very dry January for Arsenal as far as player signings go.
Annoyingly, Man City, Liverpool and Totts won their matches last night. Liverpool battered Chelsea 4-1 with Nunez hitting the woodwork four times, Totts scraped past Brentford 3-2 but City had a comfortable night against Burnley.
After the win over Chelsea, Klopp said:
We finally realised we had seven games in January with 11 days off in between, I don’t know how we fitted them in but obviously we had to start January 1. Now the next game is coming in four days and I have no idea who can play again because they looked quite knackered when I had a look in the dressing room! The next massive game is coming up already, at Arsenal, and let’s recover and go again.
As if anyone is going to believe him when he’s says his squad is knackered? We’re too long in the tooth to believe anything a manager says pre game because it’s always about mind games. But I don’t care about them or their fitness as it’s Arsenal which matters and having a fair group of officials on Sunday afternoon. I’m pretty sure that everyone other than those who really don’t like Liverpool, hopes for a perfect send off for Klopp which means winning the Premier League. Honestly, if we can’t win it, I’d rather see City win again than Liverpool. Maybe Guardiola will have had enough of the Premier League by then too.
Still, we have a good chance to close the gap between us and Liverpool on Sunday afternoon. A very good chance if everyone is fit and firing…
Catch up later..
Good morning Rico. Trolley Dash Day? It was always good fun in pre FFP days. Now the Cromwellian Puritans have taken over the club’s accounts departments all the excitement of the transfer window has been drained away. 😕
Morning Rico
The reality at the very top level is very few youth players will make it to the first team. I know very little about Sousa, but if the Club were keen on him they would have tied him down. I expect Mertesacker would have a big say in these deals as he looks after the youth structure. Seems another stick to beat Arteta with…
Nwaneri is the leading light at present. A few others may fill the subs banch, the rest will end in the lower leagues or on civvy street.
@Cicero those same accountants sanctioned a record £100m+ deal for Rice in the summer. It don’t grow on trees (unless you’re Chelsea)
Talking of Cromwellian Puritans…what a load of virtue-signalling b@ll@cks ‘dry January’ was. Good riddance.
The club has a late Wenger feel about it at the moment…on the pitch with slower movements, too much passing and attempts to score the perfect goal. We massacre one of the weaker teams from time to time but often come up short when it matters and are too susceptible to the low block. Off the pitch we seem one or two players away from greatness and seem to be playing for 3rd or 4th place with the Totts in the PL. Not sure if we will make it through against Porto in the CL but if we do then inevitably Bayern await in the Q Finals. I wouldn’t be surprised if soon Arteta starts wearing long padded blue jackets and talks about the likes of Partey and Timber returning as ‘like a new signing’. Hope i’m wrong but concerned about Sunday and the following game against W Ham who seem to have a hoodoo over us right now.
Morning Cicero, Pete.
It always seems like ever other club manages to bring youth through or sell them for a lot more than we do ours..
Blimey Dave, you seem on an Arsenal downer.
Apart from the more recent FA Cup match, we’ve done a lot better against Liverpool, we’ve beaten Chelsea and Utd and finally City. We totally outplayed West Ham too and with better finishing, would have battered them…
Geoff,
Joe Cole had the intellectual depth of a gnat, I wouldn’t pay him any attention at all…
Morning Rico and all,
Rico can you please remind all these new people coming onto your site complaining about Arteta and the players that I am this sites number 1 negative fan. 😒😉
Hi Geoff, I think you’ve just done that. 😜
Nigel,
I’m glad I didn’t read your post on Liverpool before I went to bed otherwise I would have had a sleepless night, fortunately I slept like a baby. 🙂
To be honest, Liverpool and favourable refereeing decisions have a long illustrious history, I’m not sure that any other English club, even Man United, have enjoyed so many late controversial winners and inexplainable penalties in their favour than the Media’s favourite gas meter thieves…
Good post Rico, the 20 points deduction handed out to Everton seems to have everyone in the Premier League in a tizzy.
Jim White doesn’t know what to do with himself…
Pete, what’s all this about ‘dry January’ – it’s the first I’ve heard of it?
Cheers 🍺
10 points of course, fat fingers. 🙄
Joe Cole truly is a plank. Before one of the Chelsea games last season he. said Chelsea were on a different level. He was right but not in the way he intended ( can’t remember which game,we smashed them both home and away)
Zane Monlouis linked with a loan to Reading… 🎉
You have cited Cedric and Elneny but as the phrase goes it takes two to tango and if they are content to sit on their contracts and not go there is little the club can do.
Not sure about trolley dash today is more like the handcart that football has gone to.
Joe Cole , Jamie O’Hara , Chris Sutton Gabby Ablongahor are all still bearing their axes from their playings on blog sites but the kings of Arsenal hatred are Neville and Carragher all are best totally ignored. They add nothing of value.
Afternoon and thanks Kev, is Jim White still on Sky? I thought he was sacked. 😂
Sir Jim is on Talk Sport and I’ll have you know that he’s doing a fine job on there Rico…
He is the doyen of hyperactive transfer rumours and my go to source on the inside track along with Sami Mokbel.
True Potter.. Says a lot about them if that’s the case..
Ha ha Kev. Another sport channel which is garbage..
Arsenal are to terminate Alex Runasson’s contract.. He’ll be greatly missed…
Charles Sagoe Jr has joined Championship side Swansea City on loan for the remainder of the season.
Jim White is an occasional columnist in the Telegraph, more the lighter kind of stories rather than anything in depth and not just football.
Does he talk about yellow ties? Lol
Agbonlahor – Remember him scoring an early goal and giving the cupped ear to the Arsenal fans in the North Bank. He hadn’t been getting any grief from the fans. No idea why he did it. Never liked him since.
Darwin Nunez did similar last season. I hope I get the chance to remind him on Sunday!
Read on another blog that Reull Walters has been an unused substitute 18 times
Must be frustrating to not get any minutes having had so many games on the bench.
Miguel Azeez has finally left the club…
Yes, also have to wonder if we would get more value from selling young players if we gave them more minutes.
If we gave them more minutes we might find they are worth persevering with.
Exactly and on both accounts…
I don’tunderstand why we brought runasson in the first place, he was never going to be our number 1 keeper.
The signing was influenced by Iñaki Caña, the Arsenal goalkeeping coach, who worked with Rúnarsson at the Danish side Nordsjælland. He of the Raya recommendation . I can’t help wondering when his contract runs out .
Apparently it runs out in June 2024 , I wonder if Ramsdale is hanging on to see if it gets renewed.?
I did the same Potter and was quite optimistic when I saw his contract is up this summer. Hopefully he’ll leave and take Raya with him.
A new goalkeeping coach seems like a great idea.
Giving minutes to young players can be problematic, say that Arteta gives some minutes to Walters whilst leaving Kiwior on the bench, how would go down with the senior player as he’s already reportedly unsettled, also Arteta has to keep his fringe players ticking over so that they’re ready when we need them.
I know that some point to certain games this season where Arteta could have used a young player and I don’t wholly disagree but in recent years we’ve been really unlucky with cup draws as you can’t afford to experiment in the Premier League.
I might be wrong but I think both Arteta and Cana had a say about Raya, as My gut feeling is Arteta either doesn’t fully trust Ramsdale, or he is being penalised for his fathers comments about Arteta.
New post up